The Enemy [Below] . . . the Brass Above

Whatever he did wrong, Richard Nixon got it right in his 1982 work Leaders . "Of all the changes taking place in the new world," he wrote, "one that will have a particularly dramatic impact on future leadership is the crumbling of those barriers that in the past have held women back. The woman candidate for a top executive office still has to overcome a residue of the old presumption that such positions are a male preserve. But as more move up, the presumption will fade." Secretary of the Navy Richard Danzig's October 1999 rebuke of the "white male preserve" that bans females from U.S. submarines echoes Nixon. Like the ban on women in professional baseball, the Navy's is an arbitrary rather than a skills-based policy. Nevertheless, the Navy's uniformed leaders retain all the gender cards. Admiral Jay Johnson, Chief of Naval Operations, sets the stage for rapprochement with the Tailhook Association while opposing women on submarines under any conditions. The Navy's military leadership is keeping the silent service a male preserve by banning women outright.

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J. Michael Brower is a 15-year civil servant, an Air Guard officer, and a freelance writer. He worked for the Army Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence and for the Administrative Assistant to the Secretary of the Army and the Assistant Secretary of the Army (Financial Management and Comptroller).

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